Category: Morning Musume

Well, it’s been TEN YEARS! Ten years! I started this blog January 4th, 2008! And this little milestone coincides with H!P’s TWENTY YEAR anniversary! How insane is that!? That was not planned, but I think it’s really awesome.

And, as per usual, I COMPLETELY MISSED IT!
So let’s just make this my tenth anniversary…uh…YEAR.
(Warning: this is gonna be long and about Isilie more than idols – you’ve been warned.)

I think it very Isilie of me to have completely forgotten about the milestone of ten years of H!P blogging. I’ve missed my “anniversary” basically every single year for the past nine years. That’s pretty ridiculous. It suits my personality very much. An anecdotal example: on my birthday a few years ago, I met a friend for coffee. She was sitting at a table with a small bouquet of flowers. The first thing I said was, “Oh! Who gave you flowers?” She just burst out laughing and handed them to me.

Picture that has nothing to do with anything: Just thought I’d give you some Ishikawa-puppy rabu. NO idea who made this, but it’s adorable. Does anybody else remember Hey Mirai??

Momusu + puppies = massive pwn.

Cuteness overload!!

In these entries, I will write about things that I’m thinking about that don’t require a full post. I will try to make it more interesting with pics, caps, gifs and by limiting myself to 100 words or less for each thought.It’s called a ‘return’ because I frequently seem to go too long without posting, mainly because my thoughts don’t always require a full post. Well – NO MORE!

The first time I ever met Ikuta Erina…ok, well, the only time I likely will ever meet her, was during the handshake portion of 2014’s New York concert.

I remember I’d just been overwhelmed by my Zukki moment and then floored by how warm and sweet Riho had been, then there was Eri-pon.

And I just froze, dumbfounded. She’s so very, very small. I’ve never seen a human that is that small. I mean, short, yes, but skinny, with a tiny face. This isn’t a criticism, by the way. It honestly shocked me. I had sort of expected BOSS and Oda to be small and gorgeous, but this level of tiny was entirely different.

Eri-pon spoke, saying, “arigatou gozaimasu” and her voice was incredibly high-pitched. I looked in her eyes as I shakily remembered to take her hand and saw that wince. She had smiled, but her eyes had that ‘I think that went badly’ wince that I kept seeing in variety shows or dvd magazines. Before I could say anything, apologize for what I’m sure was a strange, nonplussed face, I was pushed on

When Bro and I compared notes later, he said that he’d basically burst out laughing the second she spoke and he’d felt terrible, but couldn’t stop laughing. It was that high-pitched voice and the wince that you can’t un-see once you start to notice it.

Permit me a small freak-out post, even though you and I both know that everything is going to be fine.

I suppose ‘evolution’ is the word I want. But this is starting to be more than I can handle. I’m not trying to pick on AKB (although I suspect it will come across that way), but that is not a format I want for H!P. It’s not what H!P is. If H!P becomes a giant, unstable idol factory in which every group can just be shuffled at will and auditions don’t mean anything and groups that have worked hard get unceremoniously split up or the group name just suddenly disappears-

I still think the Platinum Era members of Momusu had it tough and it’s only now that people are realizing how amazing that group became. During promotions for their 20th anniversary, Shige said that if people were going to praise the members of that time, she wishes they would have done it back then. As Takahashi pointed out, “No one called it ‘Platinum’ at that time!” One of the most frustrating things they heard back then was, “What is Morning Musume up to nowadays?”

There were many factors contributing to their lack of popularity in Japan, but one of the major ones I cited was the appearance of AKB48. They were younger, newer, they were more accessible (at the time) and they had the variety emphasis Momusu no longer had. Momusu had to figure out what it wanted to be in the bridge period between the Golden Era and whatever they were to become. I think people generally agree that their Golden Era ended when Yossy graduated, but the usual transition was interrupted by Fujimoto Miki unexpectedly resigning to be with the man she eventually married (“Shoujiiiiii!”). Until Tsunku could find our ninth generation, Momusu had to recreate itself without their senpai to help.

One of the main things I kept seeing in blogs was ranting about ‘stagnation’ and it still bothers me. For a period of such immense changes, people didn’t seem to see anything but the lack of auditions and reliance on the same types of songs for each new release. I’m going to try and explain why I feel they didn’t stagnate; in fact, I think their development raised the bar for future generations and paved the way for the Colourful Era.

I had no idea. NONE. Like everyone else (at least everyone I’ve read), I assumed that Iikubo or maybe Fuku-hime would be next in line to graduate. See, we were all thinking about ages, huh? We didn’t think about one of the girls actually wanting to leave, because she honestly loves acting more than idol-ing.

It happens, people. Even to those who pwn our idol socks right off.

I was all ready to start posting about Kudo’s graduation, but then the bizarre revival of the shuffles happened and now I don’t even know where to start…So I split things up and I’ll just focus on one at a time.

Let’s pretend for a moment BOSS graduating is still all there is to it…

I don’t think I can express to you what Momusu means to me. I haven’t been a fan since the beginning, of course. I don’t live in Japan, can barely speak/understand the language (workin’ on it!) and can only understand idol culture on a surface level. What I can do is come out of my long hiatus, full of writer’s block and lack of motivation, to tell you about what being a fan of Momusu for the last ten years has meant to me.

(Unless otherwise stated, all caps/gifs are from random google-searches/tumblrs – not mine!)